WSJ: Verizon iPhone Will Come With Unlimited Data

The Verizon iPhone is a truly exciting prospect for us geeks, for most people, it’s not going to be a big deal. It won’t be an all new phone, or substantially different hardware-wise from the current iPhone 4… it’ll just be on a different network, and that the difference between GSM and CDMA technology is profound just won’t matter to most people.

That puts Verizon in a little bit of a pickle: short of blaring on about how much superior their network is to AT&T’s (and they will do just that), what are they going to do to to easily differentiate the Verizon iPhone from the AT&T iPhone and make it seem like a different product entirely?

Wow. How 2007! I mean that in the most positive way, though: one of the few things that Verizon and AT&T were able to agree upon in 2010 was that unlimited 3G data at a flat rate was no longer feasible. My guess is that Verizon hasn’t changed their mind any, but they need something to lure AT&T customers away, as well as convince people like you and me to sign a two-year contract for the Verizon iPhone 4 when the iPhone 5 is just six months away.

The question is, will this just be a temporary fake-out promotion, like when AT&T rolled out unlimited, month-by-month data for the iPad for all of a few weeks, or will Verizon need to offer unlimited data indefinitely to attract new customers in a country where everyone who wants an iPhone already pretty much has one?